Cataloging Exhibition Publications: Best Practices

Decision-making about the choice of a primary access point can be quite involved, and local practices and guidelines greatly affect how an exhibition publication is cataloged. How are exhibition venues traced? Who is the main entry – artist or author? Thorny questions such as these are answered concisely and with real-world examples.

This series of publications on best practices, created by the ARLIS/NA Cataloging Advisory Committee, is devoted to providing practical guidance to catalogers working with art exhibition publications. These guidelines are intended to be used in conjunction with other cataloging documentation, including Anglo-American Cataloguing Rules 2nd edition, 2002 revision (AACR2), and its successor, Resource Description and Access (RDA), Library of Congress Rule Interpretations (LCRI), and MARC21.

Subjects

Provides guidance in cataloging the "Subject Heading" fields of exhibition catalogs--illuminating the particular issues and challenges associated with these 6xx fields, including meeting names, named works of art, and the use of genre terms.

Title & Statement of Responsibility

This first section of best practice guidelines is devoted to the Title and Statement of Responsibility fields of the MARC record. This division of record elements follows the data field divisions set forth by the International Standard Bibliographic Description (ISBD): title and statement of responsibility area; edition area; type and extent of resource area; publication, distribution, etc., area; physical description area; series area; note area; standard number (or alternative) and terms of availability area.